Acid
by CDawson
Summary: Huntress literally trips over one of Reese's cases and decides the mystery is too intriguing to pass up.


"Well...that doesn't happen often." Helena gazed down at the body she'd literally tripped over moments before, arching an eyebrow in difference to the irony. 

"Huntress?"

"I'm at the scene. Or outside of it, anyway."

"What's happening?"

A soft chuckled escaped as she debated on how to answer that question. She glanced up the street, at a twenty-four-hour convenience store a few yards away. The place shone like a beacon against the shadowy back-drop of night, and on further inspection she could see the hold-up unfolding inside.

"Huntress?"

"Still here."

"What's happening there?" Oracle demanded impatiently. "Has anyone been hurt?"

"You could say that." With a final, fleeting look toward the gunman, she made a snap decision and dismissed him for the moment. "I tripped over a body."

"What?"

"There's a body outside the convenience store, and I stumbled over it when I was making my approach."

"How the hell did that happen?"

"It's dark here." She retorted defensively. "I didn't think I'd need to watch for bodies on my way _to _the crime scene. This is a first for me."

"Is he dead?"

She crouched next to the prone figure and reached for one limp, outstretched hand. Her fingers closed around a clammy wrist, and the sensation nearly had her recoiling. "Yeah. It feels like he may have been dead for a while. A few hours at least." She wiped her hand on the leg of her pants and straightened. "There's nothing I can do for him now. You can alert the cops later."

"If he's been dead for a few hours, then the gunman responsible for the holdup most likely had nothing to do with it. What's happening inside?"

"Looks like things are wrapping up. No one's hurt."

"Good. Get away from the scene as soon as possible. I don't want you anywhere near that body when the police show up."

Helena slid her gaze away from the interior of the store and glanced briefly behind her again. The only parts of the dead man visible at the moment were a hand and one expensive-looking loafer, which jutted from the thick shadow of the building like something straight from the Wizard of Oz. "Roll over, Toto." She murmured, then louder: "I'm moving in."

The gunman was backing out of the store, shouting and waving a small handgun as he went. Even as Helena tracked his progress, however, and watched--with more than a little amusement--as he struggled with the cumbersome weight of the doors, her attention was pulled in another direction. She recognized the sensation immediately: something was off, something obvious. She frowned as the realization took hold and let her gaze sweep carefully over the scene, over the entire block, searching for something that would explain the subtle nagging at the back of her mind.

"Do you have him yet, Huntress?"

"Something stinks." She said slowly, frowning as awareness filled her. The gunman was crossing the street now, but she no longer saw him. The odd stench she'd only just acknowledge wafted gently into her nostrils, not strong, but unnerving in it's elusiveness. She'd never smelled anything like it, ever. "What the hell is that smell?"

"The police are already on their way, Huntress. The manager called them." Oracle warned. "Get out."

Helena ignored her and circled back around to stare at what she assumed to be the source of her confusion. "This body is giving off a strange odor, Oracle."

"What kind of odor?"

"I don't know. It's just...strange." When you deal with crime on a regular basis, 'strange' becomes symbiotic with 'investigate.' At least, in her book it did. "I'm going to have a closer look."

"Huntress--"

"I won't touch anything. No one will ever know I was here."

"Let the police handle this one. It doesn't have anything to do with us."

"Call me curious."

She ignored the protests that followed and bent over the body once more. The man had ended up lying flat on his back, arms and legs spread eagle, with more than three-quarters of his body cloaked by shadows as dark as a basement closet. Without a flashlight, she would have to use other, more unconventional methods to see into the abyss.

Peering at the spot where she thought his face might be, she consciously switched visions. 

"Damn!" She flinched back, eyes locking involuntarily onto the gruesome sight. The man's face was nothing more than a mass of liquefied flesh, nothing recognizable, nothing to even mark it as a face. "What the hell...?"

"What's the matter?"

"This guy was burned by something, Oracle." She leaned forward, face contorting in disgust. "Looks like acid. There's nothing left of his face." 

"Let the police handle it." Oracle said again, a bit more forcefully this time. She had a sinking suspicion, however, that her protégé's attention would not be thwarted. 

Helena grimaced and rocked back on her heels. "Someone threw acid on his face....so that's what that smells like."

"Get moving, Huntress." 

"This is really sick."

"Huntress--" The faint wail of sirens cut her off and drew Helena's attention from the mutilated corpse. 

"Wow," Helena muttered, sliding back toward the alley she'd just come down. "That has to be some kind of record for those guys."

* * * *

There were footprints, but not much else.

Detective Jesse Reese bent closer to the body, breathing as little as possible and only through his mouth. The smell wasn't horribly strong, but it shot straight to the nerve endings, and several unfortunate beat cops were still losing their dinners.

"You definitely pissed off the wrong person." Reese muttered, keeping his eyes well below the pressed collar of the victim's shirt. He'd seen the mass of scorched and blistering flesh that was now the guy's face and had no desire whatsoever to see it again. Once had been one time too many.

He glanced again at the wallet in his hands. Daniel Strong, fifty-six, five foot ten inches tall with blue eyes, one hundred and fifty-two pounds. Organ donor. 

There was no way to tell if the wallet even belonged to the vic. Not without fingerprinting or a DNA test, and that would take time.

"Long way from home, aren't you buddy?" More than twenty blocks, actually, and several steps down on the social ladder. With his prominent address and fancy loafers, Daniel Strong would have stayed far, far away from this part of town. 

Reese dropped the wallet into an evidence bag and stuffed it into his pocket, twisting away from the body to catch the eye of the nearest cop. His knee thumped someone else's.

"Jesus!" He snapped, sprawling backward onto his butt. "Goddammit!"

Huntress ignored both his startled reaction and the nasty scowl that followed. She was perched next to the body in much the same way he had been moments before, her gaze fixed on the victim's disfigured head, her expression thoughtful as she regarded the seared remains. 

"Must've been a painful way to die." She remarked in a low voice. 

Reese didn't bother to respond. Instead, with a growl of irritation, he pushed himself to his feet. 

"Don't ever do that again." He growled. "That's taking the surprise approach a bit too far."

She finally looked at him, a grin haunting her lips. Her eyes flashed in the unnatural glare of the crime-scene spot lights. "I thought you'd like it. Most men find it a huge turn-on."

"What are you doing here?" He demanded, refusing to bite. "The body's barely twenty-four hours cold. We just got the call an hour ago."

"I have a personal investment in this one."

"And that is?"

She shrugged. "I tripped over him."

It took a moment for him to register her flippant explanation, but once he did his anger was instantaneous. "You what?!" 

"I tripped over the guy. You're not going to hold that against me, are you?"

Something bordering on panic rose in his chest as he realized just how complicated the situation could get. No one knew about his association with her...hell, no one even knew she _existed._ How was he going to explain this?

"Those are your prints." He exhaled sharply. "You know....you have a way of making things _way_ more complicated than they need to be--"

"What prints?"

"--this was just a simple homicide. Nice and boring. A little messy, maybe--"

"What prints, Reese?"

"The prints! The nice, neat, clear little footprints that are all the evidence we have right now!" He felt himself moving in jerky, incomplete circles and forced himself to stop, forced himself to take a deep, calming breath. The on-site cops had cleared the immediately area to allow him to work uninterrupted, but they were still near enough to see his enigmatic visitor should they choose to look in that direction. She was still crouched beside the victim's legs. "We have footprints coming in from that direction." He gestured toward the alley.

"Hmm." She rose gracefully, eyeing the ground beyond his finger, lips pursed. "Yep. Those would probably be mine."

"Dammit. What the hell were you doing here, anyway?"

"There was a holdup inside. I tripped over this guy and kinda got distracted. Your buddies got here before I could consider all the angles, I guess."

"We gotta bring you in as a potential witness."

"No way."

"Huntress--"

"Look. We've been through this before...I don't play with the police." From this angle, her eyes were very blue, and though what she was saying had a definite stubborn edge to it, he swore he saw amusement flickering in them. 

'My way or the high-way,' He thought, resigned before the argument could even gather steam. Holding her against her will would be like trying to hold water. _Catch me if you can, Detective._

"They'll run the prints and it'll be a dead end," She continued. "Lots of people have been through here in the past twenty-four hours, I bet."

"But none of them tripped over a dead body." He pointed out.

"I didn't see anyone or anything. All I did was show up after the fact." There was no amusement in those midnight eyes now. She was studying his face, searching for understanding, and that expression--for some reason he couldn't begin to fathom--had him relenting.

She smiled a knowing smile. "I wanna help, though. This case has definite potential."

He groaned.


End file.
